1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for providing relationships in a simple network management protocol (SNMP) management information base (MIB).
2. Description of Related Art
In distributed data networks, servers have the ability to make use of the Internet Standard Management Framework Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) interface. Although these servers have traditionally been used primarily in network management, they can also be used for system management solutions.
In known systems, in order for a management application to manage a networked computer or server, the management application must make use of vender specific and standardized Management Information Base (MIB) extensions. These MIB extensions may be used, for example, to show the configurable information for a printer or a user. At the time of their definition, it was enough to just model the data specific to the device or server resource. However, it is becoming more important to show the relationships between these sets of data.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have a method and apparatus for providing relationships between items of data in vendor specific and or standard MIB extensions.
A method and apparatus for providing relationships in a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Management Information Database (MIB) is provided. The method and apparatus provides a mechanism by which a management application can recognize and dynamically establish relationships between objects in an SNMP MIB supported by a SNMP agent device. The method and apparatus make use of a new Relationship MIB extension having table records for object relationships in MIB extensions.